Books I read recently

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
Another tear-jerking tale about Afghanistan. This time the story is about women and their struggle for survival in a country where war & death is common place and there's no escape from domestic violence. It's a good read with some new insights about Afghanistan's history and lovable characters. I hope his next book will be more upbeat and he won't kill the protagonist.

World Without End, Ken Follet
Sequel of "Pillars of the Earth" and just as enjoyable as the first book with unexpected twists and turns. I loved this one.

The Source, James Michener
First Michener book i managed to read end to end and with pleasure. It's a history book about Israel & Judaism written in the form of short-stories set at different points of time - it starts at the beginning of Agriculture Age and ends in 1964. It's a excellent book but am glad it's over it was making me very depressed and spiritual :) I have new found respect for the oldest religion and the resilient spirit of the people who have kept it alive for 5000 yrs now.

One common thread between these three books is religion - A Thousand Splendid Suns is about Islam in 1900s. World Without End is about Christianity in 130os and The Source about Judaism. To me the underlying message is 'Religion provides laws for living in this world... without these laws life would be chaotic... So Religion is good but only as long as it doesn't start repressing the human spirit by making the laws too restrictive/ hard to follow...'

Thats a lot of heavy reading, now i want to read something light and fun like 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, God Wild and Got a Life'... Plagiarized or not, it was a fun book...